Episode 30: Never Stop Learning: Sam Johnson on Parental Alienation, Fatherhood, and the Conversations That Change You

Episode 30: Never Stop Learning: Sam Johnson on Parental Alienation, Fatherhood, and the Conversations That Change You

Episode 30: Never Stop Learning: Sam Johnson on Parental Alienation, Fatherhood, and the Conversations That Change You With multi-award winning divorce coach, Eve Stanway Thirteen years ago, Sam Johnson left his marriage and intended to stay present in his children's lives. Within weeks they had been told he didn't want them. He went through the legal process. He didn't get anywhere. He hasn't seen them since. Sam is a copywriter and founder of The Hook Book, a service that turns a single hour-long conversation into a professionally written and printed book for busy entrepreneurs. He is also a stepfather, a husband to the main breadwinner in his household, and a man who has made a deliberate decision to keep learning long after most people stop. This conversation covers parental alienation and the absence of meaningful legal recourse in the UK family court system. It covers what it looks like to rebuild, to apologise to children when you've got something wrong, and to question the assumptions you didn't know you were carrying. Sam talks about the moment his wife stopped him mid-argument and asked, simply: why are you shouting? That question changed something. It is a precise example of what a calm, well-placed question can do in a conversation that is heading somewhere no one wants to go. There is also an honest exchange about competitiveness, the instinct to win even within your own family, and what it costs when that instinct goes unchecked. Sam's single piece of advice: never stop learning. Not as a slogan. As a daily decision. About Sam Johnson Sam Johnson is the founder of The Hook Book, which helps entrepreneurs produce a short, readable book from a single hour-long conversation. He has ghostwritten a Sunday Times bestselling book and works with business owners across the UK and internationally. Connect with Sam Website: www.thehookbookofficial.com [https://www.thehookbookofficial.com] Instagram: @hookbookofficial Thank you for listening. If you would like to comment or share a difficult conversation topic for a future podcast, please message me.🫶✨️ [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2566762/fan_mail/new] Connect with Eve Stanway If this episode has resonated with you, the conversation does not have to stop here. Website: www.evestanway.co.uk [http://www.evestanway.co.uk] Email: eve@evestanway.co.uk [eve@evestanway.co.uk] Instagram: @evestanway Facebook: Eve Stanway LinkedIn: Eve Stanway YouTube: @evestanway TikTok: @evestanway Substack: Eve Stanway If you are navigating separation and want to approach it with clarity rather than conflict, visit www.evestanway.co.uk [http://www.evestanway.co.uk/] Dare to Speak: Difficult Conversations That Change Everything is hosted by Eve Stanway, Difficult Conversations Expert and creator of the Listen, Speak, Lead Framework. Eve is the author of Dare to Speak: Navigate Difficult Conversations with Confidence and Clarity, available at www.evestanway.co.uk [http://www.evestanway.co.uk/] Coming September 2026: Dare to Listen: The Hidden Years, Difficult Conversations with Young Adults in Your Life.

Episode 29: Five Things Your Children Hear When You Think They Are Not Listening.

Dare to Speak: Difficult Conversations That Change Everything By multi-award winning divorce coach, Eve Stanway Episode 29: Five Things Your Children Hear When You Think They Are Not Listening Most of the concern during a separation focuses on the logistics. Who lives where. What the arrangements will be. How to divide what was shared. Children, meanwhile, are watching something else entirely. They are not assessing the custody schedule. They are reading the emotional atmosphere. They are tracking tone, tension, silence, and the quality of what passes between the adults around them. That is what shapes them. That is what they carry. In this episode, I address something that gets said far too rarely: the separation itself is rarely the most damaging thing for children. The ongoing emotional environment is. Parental conflict, unregulated distress, the unspoken signals that children intercept and internalise: these are what determine long-term outcome. This is not about blame. It is about understanding what is actually within reach, and what changes when adults take responsibility for their own regulation.   What This Episode Covers Parental emotional regulation as the primary protective factor for children, not the specifics of the separation itself. How children read unspoken cues, micro-expressions, shifts in tone, the quality of silence, and what they conclude from what they observe. Why ongoing conflict and emotional instability in adults cause more lasting harm than the fact of a family restructuring. How children adapt to perceived adult states, including the development of coping patterns such as perfectionism or withdrawal that mirror what they have absorbed. Why addressing the emotional environment is more consequential than negotiating arrangements or managing logistics. What consistent, regulated parenting actually looks like in practice, and why daily self-care is a form of child protection.   The Core Argument Children do not need their parents to stay together. They need their parents to be emotionally stable. Resilience in children is not built through the absence of difficulty. It is built through the presence of regulated, predictable adults who demonstrate that difficult things can be navigated without collapse or escalation. When adults manage their own emotional states, they create the conditions in which children can do the same. When they do not, children fill the gaps in ways that become habitual, often long after the circumstances that produced them have changed. This episode is for any parent navigating separation who wants to understand what they can actually influence, and how to direct their attention where it will have the most impact.   Key Points •        A child's emotional resilience is shaped primarily by how the adults around them regulate, not by the event of the separation. •        Children pick up far more than words. Tone, body language, held tension, and the quality of silence all communicate. Children interpret what they observe as information about their own safety. •        Repeated parental conflict and emotional instability are the significant stressors. Reducing these, rather than managing logistics, is where meaningful intervention lies. •        Children's capacity to adapt is real, but it depends on predictable, emotionally consistent adults. Without that, adaptability becomes survival strategy rather than genuine resilience. •        Self-regulation in parents is not a luxury. It is the mechanism by which children learn to regulate themselves. •        Children develop coping patterns that reflect the emotional environment they have grown up in. Those patterns can be redirected, but only when adults become conscious of what they are modelling. •        The emotional quality of the home, the tone of exchanges, the presence of calm: these matter more than any particular arrangement or agreement.   If This Episode Raises Questions If you are navigating a separation and want to think carefully about how to protect your children through it, or if you recognise patterns that concern you, my work is focused precisely here. Difficult conversations around children during separation require clarity, regulation, and a clear understanding of what is at stake. That is what I help people develop. You can find out more about working with me at evestanway.co.uk. Thank you for listening. If you would like to comment or share a difficult conversation topic for a future podcast, please message me.🫶✨️ [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2566762/fan_mail/new] Connect with Eve Stanway If this episode has resonated with you, the conversation does not have to stop here. Website: www.evestanway.co.uk [http://www.evestanway.co.uk] Email: eve@evestanway.co.uk [eve@evestanway.co.uk] Instagram: @evestanway Facebook: Eve Stanway LinkedIn: Eve Stanway YouTube: @evestanway TikTok: @evestanway Substack: Eve Stanway If you are navigating separation and want to approach it with clarity rather than conflict, visit www.evestanway.co.uk [http://www.evestanway.co.uk/] Dare to Speak: Difficult Conversations That Change Everything is hosted by Eve Stanway, Difficult Conversations Expert and creator of the Listen, Speak, Lead Framework. Eve is the author of Dare to Speak: Navigate Difficult Conversations with Confidence and Clarity, available at www.evestanway.co.uk [http://www.evestanway.co.uk/] Coming September 2026: Dare to Listen: The Hidden Years, Difficult Conversations with Young Adults in Your Life.

Episode 28 Dare to Speak Guest Interview with Geraint Anderson - The Subtle Art of Being a Total Psychopath

DARE TO SPEAK: DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS THAT CHANGE EVERYTHING WITH MULTI-AWARDING WINNING DIVORCE COACH - EVE STANWAY Guest Interview - Episode 28  The Subtle Art of Being a Total Psychopath Guest: Geraint Anderson | Book: How to Con Friends and Manipulate People: The Subtle Art of Being a Total Psychopath Geraint Anderson spent a decade as a top-ranked City of London stockbroker. He left, blew the whistle, and has been writing honestly about what he witnessed from the inside ever since. His latest book, How to Con Friends and Manipulate People: The Subtle Art of Being a Total Psychopath, is characteristically irreverent in tone. The argument underneath it is serious: we have built cultures, in finance, in business, and increasingly in wider society, that celebrate traits which, in any clinical context, would be recognised as deeply problematic. Ruthlessness dressed up as ambition. Emotional detachment reframed as strength. Manipulation presented as influence. In this conversation, Geraint and I look at what those traits actually are, where they come from, and what they cost. Not professionally. As a human being in relationship with other people. In This Episode •        What Geraint observed during his decade in the City, and what he eventually recognised about himself •        Why psychopathic traits are significantly more prevalent in high-pressure, high-reward professional environments, and what that tells us •        How the traits rewarded at work, charm deployed strategically, emotional detachment, a willingness to prioritise winning over honesty, do not stay at the office •        The messaging men absorb, from childhood onwards, about what strength requires and what vulnerability costs •        Why separation and divorce bring all of this into sharp focus, and what it actually requires of the men who find themselves there •        What recognition looks like, and what changes when a man begins to ask whether the way he has learned to operate is actually working About Geraint Anderson Gerraint Anderson is a writer, commentator, and former City of London stockbroker. He now lives in Monmouthshire with his wife and two children. He is the author of Cityboy: Beer and Loathing in the Square Mile and How to Con Friends and Manipulate People: The Subtle Art of Being a Total Psychopath. He writes with rare directness about culture, ambition, and what happens to people inside systems that reward the wrong things. How to Con Friends and Manipulate People: The Subtle Art of Being a Total Psychopath by Geraint Anderson is out across all major platforms on 2 July 2026. Buy it here. [https://geni.us/YsMum] Watch Geraint's showreel. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0q3Y5GLzO0&t=5s]   Watch Geraint explain the book. [https://youtu.be/8RR_1f1kdFA] Contact Geraint: gfcanderson@gmail.com [gfcanderson@gmail.com] Read the Full Blog Post Eve has written a full article drawing on this conversation: The Traits We Celebrate at Work Are the Ones That Destroy Relationships, available at evestanway.co.uk Thank you for listening. If you would like to comment or share a difficult conversation topic for a future podcast, please message me.🫶✨️ [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2566762/fan_mail/new] Connect with Eve Stanway If this episode has resonated with you, the conversation does not have to stop here. Website: www.evestanway.co.uk [http://www.evestanway.co.uk] Email: eve@evestanway.co.uk [eve@evestanway.co.uk] Instagram: @evestanway Facebook: Eve Stanway LinkedIn: Eve Stanway YouTube: @evestanway TikTok: @evestanway Substack: Eve Stanway If you are navigating separation and want to approach it with clarity rather than conflict, visit www.evestanway.co.uk [http://www.evestanway.co.uk/] Dare to Speak: Difficult Conversations That Change Everything is hosted by Eve Stanway, Difficult Conversations Expert and creator of the Listen, Speak, Lead Framework. Eve is the author of Dare to Speak: Navigate Difficult Conversations with Confidence and Clarity, available at www.evestanway.co.uk [http://www.evestanway.co.uk/] Coming September 2026: Dare to Listen: The Hidden Years, Difficult Conversations with Young Adults in Your Life.

Episode 27 - When You Do Not Recognise Yourself in an Argument

Dare to Speak: Difficult Conversations That Change Everything EPISODE 27 - When You Do Not Recognise Yourself in an Argument With Multi-Award Winning Divorce Coach - Eve Stanway You are calm at work. Measured. Known for your ability to handle pressure without losing composure. Then you get home, the conversation turns difficult, and something happens that you cannot fully explain. You become someone you do not recognise. Louder than you intended. Repetitive. Rigid. Your partner looks at you differently. Your solicitor has concerns. You look back at what happened and feel genuinely confused. This episode is about that gap. The distance between who you know yourself to be and how you behave when emotional pressure arrives. Richard's Story Richard was not a difficult person. By every external measure he was calm, capable, and emotionally available. At work, colleagues described him as steady under pressure. At home, in conversation with his wife, he became someone he did not recognise. Loud. Repetitive. Impossible to reach. His solicitor had raised concerns. His wife was watching him differently. Richard was not manipulative. He was deregulated. His nervous system had reached its threshold and run out of useful responses. Once he understood that distinction, the work became possible. His story runs through this episode. Not as a cautionary tale. As a map. What Is Actually Happening When someone accuses you of controlling behaviour, the instinct is to defend. To explain. To point out what they are missing about the situation or about you. That instinct almost always makes things worse. Most of the behaviour that looks controlling in a relationship is not strategic or deliberate. It is deregulation. Shouting, repeating the same point, refusing to let something go, dominating the space in a conversation. These are not the actions of a calculating person. They are the actions of someone who has lost access to their more considered self. That does not make the impact on the other person any less real. It does not remove responsibility. What it does is change where the work needs to happen. Where It Comes From For many men, the roots of this deregulation are in childhood. Not necessarily trauma in the clinical sense. More often: an environment where emotional discomfort was not something that got named, explored, or tolerated. Where feeling overwhelmed meant something was wrong with you. Where the options were to push through or shut down. Those patterns do not disappear in adulthood. They go underground. They resurface in the moments when you feel most at risk, when the stakes are high and your usual tools are not working. Recognising this is not an excuse. It is the starting point for changing it. In This Episode Eve walks through how the Listen Speak Lead framework applies to these moments of deregulation, beginning with the first and most important stage: Regulate. You will hear: •        Why deregulation is not the same as toxicity, and why that distinction matters •        How to identify your own early warning signs before a conversation escalates •        The specific language that de-escalates rather than defends •        How to exit and re-enter a difficult conversation with integrity •        What accountability looks like when it is not accompanied by self-destruction •        How Richard changed, and what made that change possible This Matters Legally as Well as Personally For men going through separation or divorce, the stakes are not only relational. Behaviour in conflict situations is observed, documented, and used in proceedings. A solicitor's concern about how you present in an argument is not a minor thing. It has consequences for how you are perceived by a court, by a mediator, by your children. Learning to regulate is not just about becoming a better partner or a better person. In high-conflict separation, it is protective. It is one of the most important practical steps you can take. Change Is Possible Richard was not a lost cause. He was a deregulated man who learned better responses through self-awareness, accountability, and the right support. His relationship improved. His sense of self steadied. The pattern changed because he was willing to look at it honestly. If you are navigating a separation or a high-conflict relationship and you know that your responses in difficult conversations are working against you, this is the episode to start with. The skill is learnable. The pattern is changeable. The work is specific. Find out more about working with Eve at www.evestanway.co.uk. Thank you for listening. If you would like to comment or share a difficult conversation topic for a future podcast, please message me.🫶✨️ [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2566762/fan_mail/new] Connect with Eve Stanway If this episode has resonated with you, the conversation does not have to stop here. Website: www.evestanway.co.uk [http://www.evestanway.co.uk] Email: eve@evestanway.co.uk [eve@evestanway.co.uk] Instagram: @evestanway Facebook: Eve Stanway LinkedIn: Eve Stanway YouTube: @evestanway TikTok: @evestanway Substack: Eve Stanway If you are navigating separation and want to approach it with clarity rather than conflict, visit www.evestanway.co.uk [http://www.evestanway.co.uk/] Dare to Speak: Difficult Conversations That Change Everything is hosted by Eve Stanway, Difficult Conversations Expert and creator of the Listen, Speak, Lead Framework. Eve is the author of Dare to Speak: Navigate Difficult Conversations with Confidence and Clarity, available at www.evestanway.co.uk [http://www.evestanway.co.uk/] Coming September 2026: Dare to Listen: The Hidden Years, Difficult Conversations with Young Adults in Your Life.

Episode 26 - The Grief of the Childhood We Did Not Have

THE GRIEF OF THE CHILDHOOD WE DID NOT HAVE Most grief comes with a name. This kind does not. There is no funeral for the connection that was never quite there. No ceremony for the encouragement that did not come, the safety that was absent, the moments of being truly seen that simply never arrived. Yet the loss is real, and for many people it runs quietly beneath the surface of adult life, shaping how they relate, how they parent, and how they feel about themselves. In this episode, Eve Stanway explores the grief of the childhood we wished we had experienced. Drawing on her work as a psychotherapist, divorce coach and parent, she explains why this particular grief is so often dismissed or misread, and what it costs when it goes unacknowledged. Grief is not a problem to be solved. It is a process that, when allowed to move, creates understanding. This episode examines what that process looks like when the loss was not a single event but an accumulation of what was missing. The conversation also turns to children navigating separation, divorce and significant change. Eve addresses a question many parents carry: how do I protect my child from pain? Her answer is direct. Children do not need protection from every disappointment. They need an adult who remains emotionally present, who listens carefully, and who helps them move through difficulty rather than around it. In This Episode •       The grief that does not have a name •       The impact of emotional, physical and psychological neglect •       Why this grief is so often misunderstood or overlooked •       The stages of grief, and why sadness is not something to manage away •       How childhood experience shapes adult relationships •       Why children need support through disappointment, not protection from it •       The difference between grief and depression •       Why listening can be more powerful than problem-solving •       Supporting children through separation, divorce and family transition •       Why emotional presence matters more than perfection Key Takeaways •       Grief is a normal response to loss, including losses that took place in childhood. •       Healing begins when we allow ourselves to acknowledge what was missing, rather than minimise it. •       Children do not need perfect parents. They need adults who can remain present with difficult feelings. •       Listening without immediately fixing or solving is one of the most significant things we can offer a child. •       Unacknowledged grief accumulates. Creating space for feelings to be expressed and understood is not weakness. It is the work. Resources Free webinar: How to Talk to Children About Separation and Divorce - Click Here [https://evestanway.co.uk/webinar-how-to-talk-to-your-children-about-separation] www.evestanway.co.uk https://evestanway.co.uk/webinar-how-to-talk-to-your-children-about-separation Thank you for listening. If you would like to comment or share a difficult conversation topic for a future podcast, please message me.🫶✨️ [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2566762/fan_mail/new] Connect with Eve Stanway If this episode has resonated with you, the conversation does not have to stop here. Website: www.evestanway.co.uk [http://www.evestanway.co.uk] Email: eve@evestanway.co.uk [eve@evestanway.co.uk] Instagram: @evestanway Facebook: Eve Stanway LinkedIn: Eve Stanway YouTube: @evestanway TikTok: @evestanway Substack: Eve Stanway If you are navigating separation and want to approach it with clarity rather than conflict, visit www.evestanway.co.uk [http://www.evestanway.co.uk/] Dare to Speak: Difficult Conversations That Change Everything is hosted by Eve Stanway, Difficult Conversations Expert and creator of the Listen, Speak, Lead Framework. Eve is the author of Dare to Speak: Navigate Difficult Conversations with Confidence and Clarity, available at www.evestanway.co.uk [http://www.evestanway.co.uk/] Coming September 2026: Dare to Listen: The Hidden Years, Difficult Conversations with Young Adults in Your Life.